John Prescott: It is a matter of fact that the Post Office has declined considerably over a long period and thousands of post offices have closed, as the House knows that from our many debates on the subject over the past 10 or 15 years. The hon. Gentleman should consider the fact that the Government have invested more than £2 billion in modernising the Post Office, whereas the Conservative Government gave it nothing. We have given almost £800 million to develop rural and urban post offices. We are consulting on the issue, we are well aware of the concerns and we will make a statement to the House. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that about 99 per cent. of people live within one mile of a post office.

Kate Hoey: Will the Deputy Prime Minister use his position as chair of the interdepartmental group on post offices to ensure that his different Departments know that they should give work to the Post Office instead of taking it away? Is not that the real problem—that while we are putting in subsidies, different Departments are not at the same joined up in supporting the Post Office?

Alan Reid: Does not the Deputy Prime Minister realise that unless Government Departments give work to the Post Office, people will not be able to use post offices? The most important factor is the continuation of the Post Office card account after 2010. The Government must state soon that there will be a Government-supported successor to that account and to make it easy for people to transfer—we do not want all the bullying and badgering to persuade people to go to the banks that happened when pension books were taken away. We want a Government-supported successor and an easy means for people to transfer from the Post Office card account to that successor.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 1st November.

Barbara Keeley: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require off-road bikes to be registered; and for connected purposes.
	This is the third time in the past four weeks that a Member has asked for leave to be given to introduce a Bill related to off-road bikes. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) introduced a Bill to deal with scrambler bikes three weeks ago, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) presented a Bill for the regulation on mini-motos one week ago. Further, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) recently tabled early-day motion 2040. It was signed by 79 Members, and it calls on the Government to ensure that mini-bikes are clearly defined as motor vehicles.
	I agreed some months ago to support the Greater Manchester police authority's "Stop off-road motorcycle nuisance" campaign, which has been ably supported by a campaign in the  Manchester Evening News. Those campaigns were prompted by the 26,000 complaints about off-road bike nuisance that were received by Greater Manchester police in the 12 months to July of this year.
	The Motor Cycle Industry Association estimates that as many as 300,000 such bikes have been sold since 2001. Yet the existing statutory vehicle registration scheme applies only to those vehicles required to be licensed, and the requirement for licensing a vehicle is that it is to be used on the public highway. That means that bikes introduced into circulation as off-road bikes are not registered and do not have to undergo any meaningful safety evaluation, and that they can be marketed as toys and sold to children, despite the fact that many now reach speeds of up to 60 mph.
	I believe that mandatory registration should be extended to cover motorcycles, motor tricycles and motor quad-bikes that are designed for use off-road. Early-day motion 2852, which I tabled last week, has been signed in its first few days by 52 hon. Members. It notes that off-road bikes are associated with antisocial behaviour, which disrupts communities, and calls for a mandatory and retrospective registration scheme for these bikes.
	During the summer and autumn months, my constituents and those of many other hon. Members were affected badly by noise nuisance and damage to land and property, and were put in physical danger by the reckless, dangerous and illegal use of off-road bikes. Those who live near open land, canal banks, football fields or even local parks can be affected by the relentless noise nuisance generated by off-road bikes ridden across these places. This can cause particular aggravation to the most vulnerable in our society. One Worsley constituent who has very limited eyesight told me he feared to go out of his own gate on many days in summer, in case one of the young people constantly riding off-road bikes on the adjacent field rode into him. Evidence has also been given to Greater Manchester police by the brother of a child with learning difficulties on the autistic spectrum. The child found the constant noise from two off-road bikes ridden near his home so distressing that he could not go out to play in his own garden.
	I have spoken this week to two Worsley constituents who have seen damage done to land and property by off-road bikes during the summer months. Mr. Les Higgins coaches a junior football team in Little Hulton, in my constituency, and on many occasions the team could not continue with their practice or play on the football pitch due to being ridden at by off-road bikes. The bikes, which were often ridden by two or three young people at a time, were ridden at the young football players, with the riders only swerving at the last minute. Mrs. Renee Cavanaugh, who also lives in Little Hulton, has been plagued by the nuisance from off-road bikes being ridden at the rear of her property, sometimes from as early as 8 am on weekends. Damage was also caused to her car when an off-road bike ran into it. Those riding such bikes illegally in this way are uninsured, so people whose land or vehicles are damaged by these riders have no source of redress.
	Sadly, we now have the concept of the "hit-and-run" off-road biker. A police officer in Greater Manchester was injured when he was knocked off his bike and ridden over by an off-road biker riding in a gang of 20 such bikes on a public footpath. Pedestrians aged from 14 to 77 have also been injured in collisions with off-road bikers, and a 16-year-old cyclist from Greater Manchester died after a collision with an-off-road bike.
	So off-road bikers can cause death and injury to others, but they are also at risk themselves. I am saddened whenever I drive past a particular lamp post in my constituency, which is strewn with floral tributes to the young man aged 18 who died there last year when the off-road bike that he was riding along the pavement hit the lamp post. In Greater Manchester alone, one teenage rider per month dies as a result of riding off-road bikes illegally or dangerously.
	Greater Manchester police believe that preventing the irresponsible use of off-road bikes is difficult because the nature of the bikes enables a speedy getaway, and current legislation is not strong enough to enable police enforcement. There is an inherent problem for the police in trying to catch those misbehaving on these bikes. An untrained teenager is at grave risk of accident or injury if he or she tries to flee at speed from the police on an off-road bike. Chases would also endanger the police and pedestrians.
	Although the police do have some powers under section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002, Greater Manchester police believe that these powers are cumbersome and ineffective in dealing with the scale of the problem. The powers are also seen as balanced in favour of those who commit antisocial behaviour. To deal with this, the Greater Manchester police authority have set out plans for a registration scheme for off-road bikes analogous to that for licensed road-going vehicles. That will have the following benefits. First, it will reduce the theft of such bikes, as a clear system of ownership will be established. That will also help to deal with the flourishing criminal market in stolen bikes. Secondly, it will improve consumer protection. Bikes will be subject to safety checks and it will also be impossible to market the bikes as toys. Thirdly, it will increase the efficiency of police action through the ability to identify owners.
	Those are the benefits of a mandatory registration scheme, which will help to reduce the danger posed to communities and also help to militate against the antisocial use of off-road bikes.
	I accept and welcome the measures already taken to combat the problem of off-road bike nuisance. The Government's respect taskforce recently published a step-by-step guide for practitioners, and additional finance has been made available for communities affected by the problem.
	I mentioned earlier that Greater Manchester police authority has been running a campaign called "Stop off-road motorcycle nuisance". As a result of an intensive crackdown in late spring and early summer, the local police were able to seize 78 bikes, make six arrests, issue 94 fixed penalty notices and issue 233 warnings. That was commendable work by the police and it has made some difference. However, as the testimony from my constituents Mr. Higgins and Mrs Cavanaugh shows, such campaigns by the police have only limited scope for success while the registration of off-road bikes is not mandatory or retrospective.
	Hon. Members on both sides of the House have shown through their tabling of questions, ten-minute rule Bills and early-day motions that the need for such a registration scheme exists. In a month in which we have heard so much about the nuisance of off-road bikes, I hope that I have helped to convince the House that it is time we stopped that nuisance by bringing in a mandatory and retrospective registration scheme.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Barbara Keeley, Anne Snelgrove, Chris Bryant, Natascha Engel, Lynda Waltho, Mr. Ian Austin, Jim Dobbin, Mrs. Sharon Hodgson, Dr. Roberta Blackman-Woods, Mr. Andy Reed, Sarah McCarthy-Fry and Mrs. Siân C. James.

Jack Straw: I know that there is much to be said on both sides on that issue. The hon. Gentleman makes a strong case, but it is ultimately a matter for the House, Mr. Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means. It will come as no great surprise to the hon. Gentleman that the Chairman of Ways and Means shares his view. It is for us to follow what the Chair says on that, not to try and lead it.

Jack Straw: Indeed. Having left home affairs and foreign affairs I thought that I had escaped the hon. Gentleman, but the answer to his point about the supremacy of this House is contained in the contradiction in his question. He asks me whether I will assert the supremacy of this House over the European Communities Act 1972. That Act is an Act of this House and it is open to the House at any stage to amend or repeal it. If and when we do so, it can be done by Act of this House and we would not necessarily need a referendum. We would have one, but the hon. Gentleman obviously would not. Then we would be outside the treaty of Rome and released—from his point of view—from the bondage to which he feels so subject. However, the decision would be for this House. It is not the treaty of Rome that requires that bondage, but an Act of this House, passed in 1972.
	We have to recognise, as the Modernisation Committee has said, that sending the occasional Bill to a Special Standing Committee is different from adopting it as the norm for the Government's whole legislative programme, which is what is proposed here, so several points need to be made. First, it would not be appropriate for all Government Bills. It would not be applied to Bills that are not programmed at all. It would thus not apply to the Finance Bill. Under these Standing Orders, all other Bills—except insofar as committed to the Floor of the House or, in rare cases, to a Select Committee—would go to a Committee with the power to take evidence. The Committee itself, via its programming Sub-Committee, would decide how many evidence sessions were necessary. The programming Sub-Committee would be free to propose that there should be no evidence sittings, and that is what we would envisage for Bills that have already been through the Lords—the Modernisation Committee itself envisaged different treatment for such Bills, which will already have had substantial debate. Such a process will often not be necessary for Bills that have received parliamentary pre-legislative scrutiny: one evidence session—or, in some cases, none—would normally be appropriate.
	We are also mindful of the long lead-in process for Departments in preparing for a Bill and the fact that the new processes are being introduced—in parliamentary terms—with some speed, only a couple of months after the Modernisation Committee's report. As a transitional measure, we envisage that evidence-taking would only become the norm for Government Bills introduced a little later in the Session, after this Christmas. All parliamentary Sessions are front-loaded in terms of Bills, so for the forthcoming Session, 2006-07, many fewer Bills will be subject to the process than will be the norm thereafter.
	I was in the House when the system of Special Standing Committees was introduced. It was a good idea, but it was not properly bedded down. Proper training was not given to the Clerks, Departments or Chairmen and the system fell into disrepute. It is far better—I know that this is your view, Mr. Speaker—for us to take our time to get the new structure properly established.

Jack Straw: That is not the view taken by the various groups that have looked pretty independently at these matters. My hon. Friend has the advantage of representing a seat that for a very long time has drawn its MPs from one party. People may be used to the fact that he is there, but we must keep up with the times. I have represented my constituency for nearly 28 years, but even there people want an annual report. They want not a glossy thing full of photographs of me—heaven forefend!—but something that describes in some detail what I have been doing. With the best will in the world, even the  Lancashire Telegraph—the world's most important newspaper—or the excellent BBC Radio Lancashire do not communicate those details.
	The report entitled "Power to the People" was published last year by the all-party, Rowntree-funded Power inquiry. It said that MPs
	"should be required and resourced to produce annual reports, hold AGMs and make more use of innovative engagement techniques...what is lacking is the existence of formal, resourced and high-profile methods by which all MPs can listen and respond to the concerns of their constituents between elections."
	Of course, the precise method used by Members varies. We are given a good deal of discretion, so we should be accountable for our exercise of it. In my constituency, I have not until now resorted to annual reports, but in concert with the chief executive of the council, the chief constable, the leader of the council and other public officials, I have held a rolling series of residents' meetings, which involve a lot of resources, too. It is relatively easy to do that in my constituency, although it may not be appropriate in somebody else's.
	In addition, I point out to my hon. Friend that when the Committee on Standards and Privileges looked into that matter in respect of the conduct of a Member, it said that it was important that the guidance in the Serjeant at Arms leaflet on the use of stationery should be revised
	"as soon as possible to set out, in full, the authoritative text of the existing rules, together with appropriate explanatory material, including relevant case law".
	I am not saying that that recommendation was the provenance of the proposal, but if the motion is passed it will be an opportunity to ensure that there are better ground rules both for what would amount to a communications allowance, and also for the use of prepaid stationery and envelopes.

Jack Straw: As the right hon. Lady knows, at present there is no limit on prepaid stationery and envelopes. She has been party to many conversations about that, where it has been not implicit but explicit that part of any change, which is in the end a matter for the House, is that there would be a limit on prepaid stationery and envelopes, and I hope that would meet the convenience of the House.

Martin Salter: Not for long.
	Does my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House agree that it would be an absolute travesty to describe the communications allowance as a fast-track to glossy brochures? Recently published information on expenditure shows that the most active letter writers in the House are my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who is in the Chamber, and the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire)—to both of whom I gave notice that I would make this point. Neither of them are known for glossy brochures, but for responding to petitions from their constituents. For the hon. Member for Spelthorne, one case involved a major hospital closure and he needed to use the resources available to him to communicate to his constituents the position that he planned to take. If we are to have a limit on the number of House of Commons prepaid envelopes available to individual Members, there must be another form of communications budget to enable the hon. Member for Spelthorne, my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon and all of us to carry out the job that we were sent here to do, which is to represent the views of our constituents. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

Theresa May: That suggestion has not been received with complete approval in all parts of the House, although my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield does have a fine record as a member of the Chairmen's Panel. I shall be entirely honest with my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow): I am not completely convinced of the need for a business management committee.
	I am disappointed that the Government have been unwilling to accept the Modernisation Committee's simple and practical proposal on programming. At the moment, programme motions are put immediately after Second Reading, having been determined in advance in order to be taken at that stage. That means that they have been tabled before the House has had the opportunity to air its views on Second Reading, and before the issues that are likely to be controversial have been identified. It is therefore impossible to programme properly if the motion is taken immediately after Second Reading. We should allow more time, and any programme motion that is taken immediately after Second Reading should be limited in its content, with a further motion following it a couple of days later, after it has been possible to have discussions on the information that came to light during the Second Reading debate. By that point, hon. Members' views on the subjects under discussion will have become clear. I am sorry that the Government have not picked up that point in the Modernisation Committee's report.
	The Modernisation Committee has raised a number of issues that relate to tidying up the way in which the House operates, including ways of making it easier for Members to manage their business and to find out what is happening. The Liberal Democrats made a point earlier about amendments having to be tabled one day earlier than at present. From my experience, I believe that it is not only the Government who would benefit from such a change. It would also make it easier for members of the Committee considering the amendments to take a view on them, which would improve the quality of the debate. It is crucial, however, that the Chairman of the Committee should retain the ability to accept amendments tabled at a later date, albeit in special circumstances.
	The motions leave out two crucial matters that the House needs to consider in relation to improving the legislative process. One is the need for post-legislative scrutiny—I mentioned the Law Commission's report earlier—which is a matter that we need to look at. Any business would find it very strange that we pass laws that people have to abide by, but have no regular process to determine whether they have worked or achieved what they set out to achieve. I accept that Select Committees sometimes consider certain pieces of legislation, but there is no regular, agreed way of ensuring that key legislation always receives such scrutiny.
	In order to provide such post-legislative scrutiny, we need greater clarity from the Government on the whole purpose of the Bill in question. That matter was raised earlier by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth). Such clarity of purpose is important but, sadly, has been reduced. This is particularly the case now that more and more legislation is passed down to be dealt with by secondary rather than primary legislation. Large amounts of legislation are now being passed through secondary legislation, most of which receives no debate at all. Those proposals that are debated are normally debated for only an hour and a half in Committee. The recent exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) and the Deputy Leader of the House on the delegated legislation to establish the new strategic health authorities provided a good example of this. That legislation was introduced in June and came into force on 1 July. The strategic health authorities came into being on 1 October. However, the order was debated in the House in the middle of October, after all that had happened. We need to consider not only the volume of secondary legislation but the process by which we handle it, to ensure that we are subjecting it to an appropriate level of scrutiny.

Theresa May: Yes, having some ability to amend such legislation would be appropriate. If we were to consider the matter of secondary legislation, we could incorporate that suggestion into our debate.
	The proposed changes to Standing Committees are entirely sensible. They will clarify the Committees' role, and enable us to provide much better legislative scrutiny. The ability to take evidence also represents a significant step forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham raised the issue of who should chair the public Bill Committees, as they will be known, assuming that the motion is passed today. I shall now perhaps put my head on the block by saying that, in my view, they will be more akin to the present Standing Committees than to Select Committees, and that it would therefore be appropriate for them to be chaired by a member of the Chairmen's Panel. There could, of course, be issues involved in taking a piece of legislation from its pre-legislative scrutiny through its scrutiny in the House, in relation to the amount of time that a Member would need to spend on the Committee. However, they will essentially be Standing Committees considering legislation, rather than Select Committees, and their chairmanship should be determined on that basis.
	The proposals on the legislative process are good; they will help us to help Members become more effective in the management of business, in the scrutiny of legislation and in ensuring that we have better legislation at the end of the day. However, the House still needs to address the key areas of post-legislative scrutiny and of secondary legislation, and I am disappointed that the proposals on programme motions have not been taken up by the Government.
	Overall, we need to consider the volume of legislation that goes through the House, and to enable hon. Members to have more opportunity to debate the issues that lie behind the legislation. All too often, debates on the issues can be constrained only in a debate on a Bill that the Government introduce. I apologise to the Leader of the House for citing an example that he has heard before, namely that, although we have considered a number of criminal justice Bills that have dealt with antisocial behaviour, we have not had a proper debate in the House on the causes of antisocial behaviour. It would be of benefit to the House and to our holding the Government to account to debate those issues. It would also be of benefit to our constituents if they could see us debating the issues that are crucial to them.
	The communications allowance has already excited considerable interest across the parties in the Chamber today. The present situation needs to be changed. We have seen from the recent publication of the details of Members' allowances that a small number of Members spend a significant amount of taxpayers' money on their postage and stationery. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore)—who is in his place today—came top of the list, but my quick calculation tells me that seven Members spent more than £20,000 on stationery and postage.
	The present rules on stationery and postage allowances are, in some senses, confusing. We are told, for example, that
	"House stationery should not be used for circulars of any description".
	However,
	"Members who wish to send out circulars may purchase...House stationery...at their own expense",
	although, if they do so, they must not use post-paid envelopes. The present rules are therefore sending out confusing messages, and we need to look at this issue.
	We also need to look at a situation that reflects the job of a Member of Parliament today. During the Leader of the House's speech, hon. Members swapped amusing anecdotes across the Floor of the House about the approach of past Members to post received from their constituents. When I first became a Member, I was told that Enoch Powell used to sit in the Library and write responses to all the letters that he received by hand. That action would be inconceivable today due to the volume of correspondence that we receive.

Simon Hughes: Does the right hon. Lady understand that there is all the difference in the world between Members responding adequately to unsolicited requests from constituents for help or our views—some Members have huge caseloads that are not prompted by any effort to recruit work, including those representing inner-city seats, seats with mixed communities and seats with many asylum and immigration cases—and unsolicited party circulars that are prompted by not a single issue, but a Member's desire to get re-elected? Such circulars should be out of the system. Parties should fund them if they want to, but the taxpayer certainly should not.

Dawn Butler: I am bemused by some of the arguments that we are hearing in relation to the communication allowance. It depends whether we consider ourselves constituency MPs who communicate with our constituents, or Members who just sit in the House and spout Opposition arguments. Those of us who are constituency MPs communicate with our constituents as much as we can, as many times as we can. An annual report adds to that. I have found that people contacted me after receiving an annual report. As the right hon. Lady said, our job is not confined to the House. We have to communicate with our constituents. Those MPs who are not doing so should be ashamed of themselves.

Mark Lazarowicz: Is not part of the answer to the reasonable concerns that have been expressed to have strict rules as to the content and use of the communications allowance? That would have to be done at a later stage. There may be Members who will try and stretch the rules, as it is alleged some Members do now, but the House must deal with that. Is not the answer to accept the principle and go for strict rules as to how the allowance is used when the details are decided?

Theresa May: Indeed. My hon. Friend makes a valid point, although at least one of those who took the Michael, as he calls it, in relation to allowances lost their seat, so the voters gave a clear message to that individual.
	I am conscious that I have been speaking for a considerable time, so I shall move on to the chunkier topic of September sittings. I agree with the Leader of the House that September provides an opportunity for Members to visit constituency organisations which it is otherwise not possible for them to visit, because such organisations often meet on weekdays and do not meet in August. In September Members have far greater opportunities to get around the constituency and do constituency business. It is important that they have September to do that.
	My view is simple. We could change the order of the terms of our sittings. The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), who is no longer in her seat, raised a wider issue. In my view, the party conference season is in desperate need of a shake-up. I would far prefer party conferences to take place over weekends, rather than during the week. In terms of enabling more people to have access to them— [Interruption.]
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey asks whether I am in favour of votes at party conferences. I suspect that he did not pay quite as much attention as he might have done to every day of the Conservative party conference. I will tell him that on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday—not the Sunday—of party conference, I chaired a session where members of our candidates list put policy proposals to the conference and conference voted on those proposals, which are going forward to our policy review. So we did indeed have votes, and what is more, they were votes on policy.
	We need to change the party conference— [Interruption.] I am not sure what the hon. Member for Reading, West is saying as he bounces up and down in his seat. I have always found the hon. Gentleman most stimulating in our exchanges. He is almost a neighbour, but not a direct neighbour because of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson).

Theresa May: Yes, he is the silent Europe Minister, as the hon. Gentleman reminds me.
	Proposals on the subject were promised a considerable time ago, and hon. Members are beginning to wonder whether the Government were being genuine when they said that suggested changes would be put before the House. There is a real need to consider the issue of public sittings of the European Scrutiny Committees, and the way in which we scrutinise European legislation, because like secondary legislation, all too often, it simply does not receive proper scrutiny in the House, although we know that it has a considerable impact on our constituents and the country.
	I support the proposal on short speeches, as it makes sense, although if we had longer time for certain debates—for example, if we had two days for Second Readings—more Members could make a full contribution to the debate, without time restrictions applying.
	In conclusion, I support the proposals on the legislative process, but the proposed communications allowance is not the right way forward. I support the Leader of the House in his other proposals, particularly those on September sittings.

David Winnick: I intend to press my amendment to the motion on September sittings to a Division at the appropriate time.
	As a preface to my remarks, the House may be interested to hear what occurred—or did not occur—with regard to allowances 40 years ago, when I first entered the House, for another constituency. There was no secretarial allowance, but hon. Members got a third of what they paid their secretary back in tax. It was rarely a full-time secretary, for obvious reasons. We paid postage for all letters, which was not an incentive to do any copying, and for telephone calls outside London. Notepaper was strictly rationed, and I can remember trying to argue the case for more. Some might say, but not necessarily me, that we have gone from one extreme to another.
	I accept that my amendment, which is supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House, probably represents a minority viewpoint. I have no illusions: I know that all the indications are that the majority of Members will reject it. Nevertheless, it is important that the point of view that it represents should be put to the House and voted on. As I have said this in interventions on other hon. Members, it seems quite wrong for the House to go into recess for a continuous period of 11 weeks. The issue is not whether we sit for longer than other Parliaments—we may well sit for longer than others in western Europe, and than the United States and Canada—but whether it is right that the House should be in recess for such a long period. That is the crux of the issue. I, like the hon. Members who will vote with me, find that unacceptable. There has been some progress: one could cite the example of written questions, which is obviously an advance, but it cannot possibly be considered a substitute for the House sitting.

Martin Salter: May I chastise my hon. Friend, because he does not do himself or his argument any favours by referring to the allowances and budgets that we receive to pay our staff, and provide a service to our constituents, as expenses. Expenses are what journalists receive; budgets and allowances are what MPs receive to do the job of work that we are sent to Westminster to perform.

David Winnick: My hon. Friend would be perfectly entitled to make such remark about me if he would only listen for once. It is the first time that I have been criticised in an intervention for the opposite of what I said.
	In conclusion, the word "recess" is virtually unknown outside the Westminster village. Members may have met constituents and others who talk about the recess, but I have only done so once or twice in all the years in which I have been an MP. It is a Westminster word. To the average person, it is a holiday. Most people generously accept that during that "holiday" we do a good deal of constituency work but, nevertheless, the term is not used outside the Westminster village. My amendment gives the House the opportunity to sit in September. If it were carried—I accept that that is unlikely—there would be consultations between the Front Bench spokesmen of the three main parties and the usual channels to try to remedy the arrangement whereby we returned for two weeks in September before the recess resumed. Urgent steps would be taken, as recommended by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon) when he was Leader of the House. In a reply to a question that I asked during business questions almost a year ago on 10 November, he said that the political parties could be consulted about conference arrangements and so on.
	There is therefore a solution—we could return to Westminster in late September, so the recess would not resume. I emphasise that if the House rejects my amendment, it is unlikely, despite what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, that there will be any change for a long time. That is unacceptable and we would not do ourselves any favours. I therefore urge right hon. and hon. Members to give serious consideration to my proposal.
	2.25 pm

Stewart Jackson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the logical corollary of his line of argument is that we could be on a slippery slope to creating different types of Members of Parliament based on value judgments as to the type of casework that they do and their geographical location? For instance, I have a lot of asylum and immigration cases in my constituency, but it would be a retrograde step to make a value judgment that my caseload was more deserving of a bigger allowance in delivering my duty as a Member of Parliament than someone in a rural area such as himself.

Ann Coffey: We on the Modernisation Committee discussed at length how we could support school visits. I know that the education department of the House of Commons is currently visiting various constituencies to try to find out what are their needs in terms of having access to Parliament. After it has finished those visits, I hope that it will report back to the Committee.

Dawn Butler: The Youth Parliament is seeking to have a debate in the House of Commons. The national Youth Parliament includes all the schools from around the UK. That might be planned to happen in the recess.

Ann Coffey: Yes, as my hon. Friend says, there is a lot of interest in Parliament among young people; theirs is not a totally disengaged generation, although that is sometimes the perception.
	We must find a way of ensuring that the important citizenship curriculum in schools is taught properly and well. But we must at the same time ensure that we modernise Parliament so that young people, whose interest in it we have encouraged through that citizens' agenda, feel that they can have some input into this place.
	I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has introduced the modernisation proposals, and I look forward to there being many more of them, particularly to those that might arise out of our current inquiry into the role of the Back Bencher, which I know that he welcomes.

Greg Knight: I shall start by referring to the two motions relating to sub judice, but before I get on to the meat of my argument, I wish to thank all members of the Procedure Committee for their support and hard work. It does not involve trips to exotic places overseas, and often there is no media coverage, but, nevertheless, it is very important. I also join the Leader of the House in paying tribute to my predecessor as Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), whom I am pleased to see is in his place.
	Parliament's sub judice rule effectively prevents debate on individual cases while they are active before the courts. The rule is set out in a resolution that was agreed to by each House in 2001. Our predecessor Committee reported on the resolution as a whole in March 2005 and, while recognising that it has sometimes created difficulties for Members, particularly in terms of delaying debates, that report did not recommend any change to the rule itself.
	We decided to return to the subject mainly because of representations that we received from Members that the implementation of the rule was preventing them from debating issues that deserved to be raised in Parliament. There was particular concern about coroners' courts, where an inquest could be opened that then adjourned for months, and even years. One case that was drawn to our attention was adjourned for more than two years while police inquiries and other investigations were carried out. I shall return to the issue of delay.
	It was put to us that the House authorities were repeatedly over-cautious in the advice that they gave, and that as a consequence, Members were finding that any hint of active court proceedings was enough to prevent debate or questioning not only on the case itself, but also on related issues of general policy. That is not the purpose of the rule, and Members should not be given the impression that it is.
	As we pursued our inquiry, we discovered a number of reasons why that impression had been created. First, the rule is, in its entirety, subject to the discretion of the Chair. Mr. Speaker has the power to set it aside if it is his opinion that a particular case is of sufficient importance that debate, or questions relating to it, should be allowed. Our predecessor Committee recommended in its report that where Members believe the rule to be unreasonably impeding the work of Parliament, they should refer the matter to Mr. Speaker and ask him to exercise his discretion.
	However, many Members have not always understood how they should go about asking Mr. Speaker to exercise his discretion. In particular, some Members did not appreciate that the discretion can be exercised only by Mr. Speaker himself. It cannot be negotiated with Clerks in the Table Office. We have therefore recommended that the Table Office should produce a short printed guide to the rule, which I hope will provide a clear explanation of that, and of other aspects of the rule.
	Secondly, the House authorities have, perhaps, been somewhat over-cautious in their advice on the implementation of the rule. That is because—to be fair to them, and to borrow the frank words of the former Clerk of the House, Sir Roger Sands—
	"we have quite often been let down by Members in this matter."
	This is how he explains what he meant by that: for example, some Members have, in the past, applied for an Adjournment debate on a general matter of public policy, but have then, without any warning, produced
	"a string of details about a very specific case, referring to individuals by name and generally looking to the Minister to do the job which the judge or the coroner should properly do".
	I hope that the House will agree that Mr. Speaker cannot be expected to exercise his discretion to allow debate if he cannot rely on the Member concerned to keep to the agreed terms of that debate.
	For that reason, we have recommended that there should be a new Standing Order that explicitly gives Mr. Speaker power to direct a Member to resume his or her seat if he or she oversteps the agreed mark in relation to sub judice matters. It is proposed that that power also be extended to those who chair Westminster Hall debates and non-legislative Standing Committees—or "General Committees", as we are soon likely to call them.
	It is my Committee's belief that, armed with the specific powers in the new Standing Order, Mr. Speaker will be much better placed to exercise his discretion in a greater number of cases, and in more sensitive cases he will, we hope, be able to agree to allow a Member to have a debate, its scope having been agreed beforehand by the Member concerned.

Greg Knight: If I may, I shall deal with that issue a little later, because a development is taking place, to which I shall refer, that has great bearing on it. If, once I have dealt with it, the hon. Gentleman is not satisfied, I invite him to intervene on me again.
	If the House agrees to these proposals, I should expect to see fewer refusals to allow a debate where there is an issue to discuss that can be dealt with without compromising pending cases. In approving our report and the introduction of the Standing Order, the House will be establishing a new and firmer base from which the Speaker will be able to exercise his discretion, confident that he has both the power of the Standing Order and the support of the House.
	We did consider whether the rule itself was wrong or needed amendment, but like our predecessor Committee, we concluded that the rule should stand, that there was no need for a change to the wording of the resolution, and that coroners' courts should remain within the scope of the House's sub judice rules. These conclusions are based, first, on the risk of prejudice to specific cases or inquests, and, secondly, on the ground of comity or non-interference with the judiciary.
	The Committee also considered in detail the issue of delay, which has been a particular problem with coroners' inquests. As I mentioned earlier, an inquest can be opened and then adjourned for months or even years. It is ironic that if a constituent is seriously injured it is likely that the Member concerned will have no difficulty in raising the issue in the House, but if that constituent is killed rather than seriously injured, because the death results in an inquest, which is likely to be opened and then adjourned, the matter instantly becomes sub judice. We considered whether it would be practical to establish a trigger point later than the opening of the inquest for the application of the sub judice rule to coroners' courts. I am afraid that in the light of the evidence that we took—including from the Attorney-General—we were forced to conclude that there is no alternative point to which the trigger could be connected.
	We did, and I do, recognise that these delays are very frustrating for Members. However, under the Contempt Of Court Act 1981, the length of time between an alleged contempt and the proceedings of the case itself is an important criterion by which the extent of the contempt is judged. Although I do not believe that that Act can or should be applied to proceedings in this House, we do recommend in our report that Mr. Speaker take particular account of the question of delay in considering whether to exercise his discretion. Moreover, I believe that the Government's proposals in the draft Coroners Bill for a more professional coroner service and a chief coroner's office offers the prospect of more timely and accurate advice on the state of individual inquests than has previously been possible. I hope that that partly answers the point raised earlier by the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones).
	The problems associated with delay might be resolved in the not too distant future. I received a letter from the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs that is very relevant to the issue of delay, and I should like to share part of it with the House. I had told her that the Committee was looking into this matter, and particularly the very long delays that often occur when inquests are adjourned. In referring to the draft Coroners Bill, she said the following:
	"I should like to draw your attention to one change of policy, underpinning the draft Bill which may reduce the number of occasions when the sub judice rule needs to be invoked. The Bill makes a distinction between coroners' duty to investigate and their duty to hold an inquest. This distinction will mean that, in practice, coroners will not, as they do now, routinely open and adjourn inquests at the start of their inquiry into a death. Instead, when coroners believe that a death falls into a category which they are obliged to look into, they will begin an investigation. They will not, therefore, open an inquest until later in the process when they are ready to either hold a pre-inquest hearing or to hear the case in full."
	That is very important. She continues:
	"We will need to assess how this change will impact on the exemption that coroner's cases receive from debate in Parliament under the sub judice rule, but certainly one interpretation could be that a coroner's investigation and inquest would equate to the distinction in the criminal justice system between a police investigation and the commencement of court proceedings."
	I hope that the problem that some Members have experienced of an inquest being adjourned for a very long time, and of their being unable, therefore, to debate the issue, might soon be consigned to history.

Kevan Jones: That clarifies the position and is helpful to those of us who have experienced the lengthy delays associated with coroners' courts. But what will happen when the complaint is about not an individual case, but a multitude of cases—in other words, when the core complaint is about the coroner himself? In such a situation, reference might have to be made to individual cases in order to argue that the coroner in question was at fault. For example, there is one coroner in the north-east who was appallingly slow in dealing with inquests.

Greg Knight: The matter is not yet cut and dried. The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs goes on to say in her letter that the Lord Chief Justice is being consulted, and I should hope that concerns such as those expressed by the hon. Gentleman will be examined by the right hon. and learned Lady and the Lord Chief Justice before they finalise the scope and terms of the coroners Bill, which I understand will be pursued initially as a draft pre-legislative Bill. The hon. Gentleman can therefore pursue these matters further when we debate that Bill. However, this development suggests to me that the Government are looking at this issue thoroughly and sensitively, and for that they should be congratulated.
	I therefore hope that, for the reasons that I have outlined, the House will decide not to divide on this aspect of today's business and will instead give the proposals their full support.
	I welcome the report of the Modernisation Committee, of which I am a member; indeed, I took part in the deliberations that led to the report's formation. I particularly support the proposal that pre-legislative scrutiny should become more widespread; that is good news for the parliamentary process and for effective scrutiny. Too often, when Ministers bring a Bill to this House, they are unwilling to countenance changes to it, regarding such changes as almost a personal attack on themselves or their policy. Having a pre-legislative phase to draft Bills will, I hope, mean that we get more debate and discussion, and a greater willingness on the part of Ministers to accept amendments where they are deemed appropriate.

Jack Straw: It is precisely that characteristic that is also the advantage of the new Committee stage of Bills. Speaking from my own direct experience of asylum and immigration legislation, because there were four evidence-taking sessions, I was able to withdraw gracefully a couple of proposals that we all thought were very good ideas in opposition, but which turned out to be rather less than good on further examination. I was able to withdraw them far more easily than if they had come up in the adversarial part of the Committee stage, or on the Floor of the House.

Greg Knight: That is a powerful point. Anything that allows a Minister to change tack without losing face should be encouraged.
	Moving on to the Public Bill Committee proposals, I again fully support what is in the report. I hope that it will lead to less yah-boo politics at the Committee stage and a greater opportunity for constructive scrutiny and enlightened debate.
	In his opening remarks, the Leader of the House treated the House to his experience when he first came here as an Opposition Member. When I was the Government Whip on a Standing Committee that was about to be appointed, I had a list of names and showed it to the Chief Whip. He said, "Why do you want to put him on your Committee?" I said, "He knows something about the subject." He said, "Yes, that is a very good reason for keeping him off the Committee." We should move on from the days when Government members of committees were told to shut up and keep quiet and Opposition Members felt that they had to talk and talk to fill the time. We can do better. I believe that the proposals in the report will show that that is the case.
	The Modernisation Committee report contains a suggestion that we introduce the innovation of requiring Members to table an explanatory note on their amendments. That is an interesting suggestion. My Committee is happy to look at it, including in the context of the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who was worried about extending the time for tabling amendments. If we can find a way of having a satisfactory system for tabling explanatory notes to amendments, some of the concerns about a raft of amendments being tabled at the last minute, particularly where they refer to other legislation and therefore are not immediately intelligible, may be allayed.
	On the issue of September sittings, I realise that there are differing views on the subject. I want to share with the House some of the discussions I had when I was shadow Deputy Leader to the late Eric Forth, who delegated to me all the responsibility for dealing with the then Leader of the House on that issue; the Leader of the House at that time was the late Robin Cook. Although in debate he obviously made the point about holding the Government to account, Robin Cook's main concern—in fact, it was an irritant with him—was that every year the press had the headline, "MPs away on a three-month holiday". His argument to me was that, if we had a system where we came back for two weeks, and the recess after that time was a constituency and conference recess, the press would not be able to say that MPs had gone away for three months' holiday. Judged by that aspect of it, the experiment has been a total failure because, in the years when we had September sittings, we still had the headline, "MPs have gone on a three-month holiday".

Greg Knight: That is a fair view. I said at the outset that there are differing opinions on the matter. Having served in a Government Whips office, I just feel that, for the business managers, it is difficult to get substantial business marshalled for a period when the House is sitting for only two weeks. One has to find out where Ministers are and then discuss with the Opposition where the shadow Ministers are. I was rather of the view on the occasions when we sat in September that, for most of the time, considering the business we were dealing with, it was like treading water.
	It is not cost-effective to bring the House back for two weeks and for us to go away again. Many hon. Members—I am not one of them—like to go abroad on fact-finding visits, which they can only undertake in the recess. They found the September sittings disruptive from that point of view.

Chris Mullin: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I am at least grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that we have not be allowed to renege quietly on the deal and, if it has to be reneged upon, it will be done—

Chris Mullin: I prefer the word "publicly".
	Whatever the current degree of enthusiasm for September sittings in the House, I am in no doubt that there is great enthusiasm for them among our constituents, many of whom firmly believe, despite our protestations to the contrary, that when the House is not sitting we are all sunning ourselves in the south of France. We all know that that is not true, but the best way to knock the myth firmly on the head is for the House to sit and for us to be seen to be doing the job for which we are primarily paid.
	I am aware that September traditionally provides us with an opportunity to carry out many engagements that we might not otherwise have time for during the rest of the year. However, I repeat that we are talking about only eight days in September. Moreover, the House sits for only a little over half the year. Assuming that we do not regard the remaining half of the year as holiday, we can surely adjust our constituency engagements to allow for sitting eight days in September.
	I have seen the answer supplied to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Doran) by the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), who speaks on behalf of the Commission, setting out the likely impact on the maintenance programme. All I would say is that it cannot be beyond the wit of those concerned to organise the works programme to fit in with September sittings, especially if they have plenty of notice.
	The amendment is part of a wider struggle against the erosion of the esteem in which Parliament is held. To some extent, we have only ourselves to blame for that erosion. It always puzzles me that we fight hard to get into this place, but having got here, many of us cannot wait to get home again. Last Thursday, we discussed the White Paper published by the Department for International Development, and the Opposition spokesman actually complained that the Government were holding the debate at a time when many hon. Members could not be present—that was a Thursday afternoon, for goodness sake. How can we expect the public to take Parliament seriously if we do not?

George Young: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). He carried me with him for half of his arguments. One of the motions before us relates to short speeches, but we are not doing frightfully well on that score this afternoon. I propose to bring down sharply the average length of speeches in this debate.
	When the Leader of the House opened the debate some three hours ago, he painted a rosy picture of parliamentary reform since 1997. He rightly said that there have been some improvements—including Westminster Hall and the Prime Minister's appearance before the Liaison Committee. Had the Leader of the House's speech been even longer, I am sure that he would have recognised the items to be put in the scale on the other side. For example, there is a widespread view that Parliament is increasingly bypassed. Ministerial announcements are made outside the Chamber. We had the fiasco of the Robin Cook reforms to the Select Committees being voted down. We have seen a loss of flexibility in Standing Committees because of the automatic programming of Bills. We have more and more Government amendments. The House of Lords has to put right legislation that we have not had time to put right here—and we have had the shambles of House of Lords reform. Whether we are better able to hold the Executive to account is a more balanced question than the Leader of the House implied when he opened the debate.
	On September sittings, I do not mind sitting in September, but I do not want to come back then and sit for two weeks. The Leader of the House suggested an eminently sensible way forward—that we do not deal with this question in an ad hoc way, but take a more holistic view of how and when we sit. We could then revisit the question of whether to sit in September against the background of that debate.
	I want to speak briefly to motion 6, which invites us to endorse the principle of establishing from 1 April next year a separate allowance to help us to communicate with constituents about parliamentary business. It also instructs the Members Estimate Committee to prepare a detailed proposal for such an allowance. Motion 6 differs from the others in that no explanatory memorandum is associated with it, nor any Select Committee report that sheds light on the case that it makes.
	I recognise that there is always a balance to be struck between the need for prudence with public expenditure—something that has not been mentioned in the debate as much as it should have been—and the imperative of bridging the gap between elected and elector that could undermine Parliament's legitimacy. We should never forget that one reason why we are all here is to keep a watch on what happens to our constituents' taxes. We need to be doubly careful when, as is the case with motion 6, hon. Members rather than the Executive are the conduit through which the taxes pass. We must also recognise that the House's reputation is involved when it votes increased allowances for itself.
	We discuss motion 6 in something of a vacuum as we do not know what it will cost. It need not cost anything, but the Leader of the House's response to an intervention suggested that the motion will have an associated cost. Nor is it clear how the motion relates to the work on fixing our allowance in which the Senior Salaries Review Body is presently engaged. Will the SSRB be asked to contribute to the work mentioned in the motion, or does the motion, in effect, pre-empt one aspect of the board's work?
	If the proposed allowance is approved, it should replace rather than supplement the two existing IEP funding regimes—one of them for free stationery and postage, and the other for funding stationery and postage, parliamentary newsletters and similar publications, and websites. If those hopes were fulfilled, there would be consequential implications for the scope and level of the residual IEP allowance. However, if the proposal allowance is to be introduced not at nil net cost, but as a way of providing additional headroom for expenditure, I have not heard a compelling case so far today in support of the House voting in favour of providing up to £6 million in increased public expenditure.
	The current regime has featured in recent cases considered by the Standards and Privileges Committee. Like the one chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), my Committee does not travel far: since I have been Chairman, I do not think that we have ever ventured beyond Committee Room 13. The Committee has found significant shortcomings in the regime for free stationery and postage and in the IEP regime. Our concern about those shortcomings, which affect all parties in the House, is shared by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
	The cases at the heart of the Committee's ninth and 12th reports highlighted some of the weaknesses and ambiguities in the existing rules for postage and stationery. In our ninth report, we supported the replacement of the current arrangements by a single unified stationery and postage regime, governed by one clear set of rules. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) noted that it was somewhat farcical that one cannot claim back money from the IEP in respect of a House of Commons envelope, but that one can do so when one bought a postage stamp and put in on a plain envelope.
	The Committee considered that the introduction of a unified regime would benefit both hon. Members and the wider public's confidence in the system. We also said that we would work with the House of Commons Commission and the Administration Committee, as appropriate, to ensure that the rules surrounding such a regime, whatever form it ultimately took, were clear and capable of effective enforcement.
	The question of the scope of material that properly could be included in an IEP-funded publication has also concerned the Committee, and was dealt with in our ninth report. That report found that there were considerable differences of interpretation, to put the matter tactfully, among Members of Parliament about where the boundary lay between legitimate parliamentary activity, which can be funded out of the IEP, and party political and campaigning activity, which cannot. I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South about the incumbency factor that we are building into the allowances.
	The Committee commented that those significant differences of view among hon. Members represented a very unsatisfactory position from the perspective of those who have to enforce the rules, and that they needed to be addressed. We said that we would look further at the general matter of publications funded from the IEP and determine whether there was scope for a tighter definition of permissible expenditure.
	If the House agrees the motion, the Members Estimate Committee will, in effect, be given the task of making proposals for a communication allowance and will have to address the shortcomings to which I have just referred and which we planned to examine. I do not envy the Committee its task of dealing with the various interpretations of what exactly constitutes parliamentary business. As someone who, along with the hon. Members for Sunderland, South and for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), will have to enforce the rules if a new communication allowance is introduced, I stand ready assist the Members Estimate Committee in drawing up clear, readily understood rules for the new allowance, which are capable of effective enforcement. That is in the common interest of Members and those responsible for enforcing the rules; it is also in the wider public interest.
	Finally, if the communication allowance were to be introduced on a nil net cost basis I would support it, because it would bring in a cap, which we do not have at present, for postage and stationery. If, however, there were to be a net cost to the taxpayer—as seems likely—I would oppose it. I am not persuaded that the case has been made. At a time when public services are under pressure—for example, today there is a rally on behalf of those concerned about difficult decisions in the NHS—I do not believe that the case for higher expenditure to support that particular aspect of our activity has been made.

Andrew Dismore: I particularly want to refer to the communication allowance, as I have been named three times directly in the debate and once obliquely, based on my expenditure on stamps. My response to that is that I would rather be No. 1 than at the bottom—at No. 640, or whatever it is. My position reveals that I have been trying to do my best to keep my constituents informed about what is going on. It is a matter of pride to me to be at the top rather than the bottom of the list. Indeed, I would question what some of those at the bottom are doing to earn their wages—a point that has already been made in the debate.
	What exactly is the problem we are trying to address? Ours must be the only job in the world where high productivity is seen as something to be criticised rather than praised, as would happen in the real world outside. There is a generational issue: Members who have arrived here since 1997, on both sides of the House, take a different attitude to the job from those who have been here longer. Those of us elected in 1997 and subsequently have more of a constituency focus in our work; we are much more alive to the need to try to keep our constituents aware of what is going on—not just what we have been doing, but what is going on in the House and also in our communities. They often cannot find such information anywhere else. Local newspapers tend to be relatively superficial because they have limited column inches, and the approach of the national press to the issues can only be described as generic.
	I am satisfied that I perfectly comply with the rules. If I did not, there would be many complaints. I go out of my way to inform my constituents about what is going on, in a non-party political way. I put out material on my website and I try to encourage people to use e-mail whenever possible. I defy anybody to find a party political slant—the accusation that has been levelled at me—in any of that material. Even if I had sent out letters in the numbers talked about in the press, it averages out at rather less than one letter per resident in my constituency, which contains 110,000 people.
	Other people have sent out annual reports under the IEP. I do not do that. They may have communicated with every person in their community more than once. I do not do that. I respond, in detail, to requests for information that people cannot find anywhere else. I do not use the IEP fund for that. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) raised the important point that the IEP does not go as far in London as in other parts of the country. In fact, most of mine goes on the rent for the hovel we call home—my constituency office. I do not have excess money to spend on leaflets and the vanity publishing to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) referred; I just want to make sure that my constituents are among the best informed in the country about what is actually happening in their communities.
	That does not mean just writing to people, but going around, as I do, knocking on doors every Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning or on weekday evenings in September—a point to which I shall return. It means having tea parties that people can attend to meet me, constituency surgeries, street stalls and visiting council estates regularly to listen to complaints and take them up, all of which generate a significant amount of work, as do the petitions that I receive almost daily. Constituents in Hendon like writing letters and signing petitions.
	I can illustrate my point by quoting some of the letters that I have received. Since I knew that we were going to conduct this debate—there were rumblings for several months—I started to ask constituents, whenever I wrote to them, whether they would let me have their e-mail address if they had one and to warn them that there might be restrictions on the amount of correspondence that we could send. I have received a huge sheaf of letters, but I shall refer only to one or two.
	Mr. Morris said:
	"We very much appreciate these reports... We read frequent reports of the drop in the turn-out at elections and the fall in public interest in political matters".
	He continued by saying that
	"to reduce the budget of MPs' correspondence with their constituents - which will save a trivial amount of money compared with the wastefulness and mismanagement of... other public expenditure shows a remarkable degree of stupidity. The 'House of Commons authorities' must be mad! Please pass this letter to them."

Andrew Dismore: No, it signed by Mr. Michael Morris of The Rise, NW7.
	The fact remains, how much are we talking about? If we are talking about allowances of about £10,000, only 20 Members have spent more. The total cost of that excess is just more than £100,000, and I suspect that if we introduce the allowance it will cost rather more than the £100,000 that might be saved. If we put that against some of the waste mismanagement to which Mr. Morris referred—£400,000 spent on a covered walkway in the yard downstairs, for example—that would have paid for four years' worth of envelopes for everyone who has been criticised for using rather more allowance than they should.
	Other constituents wrote to me. A gentleman from Burnt Oak wrote that
	"it disappoints me to hear that your budget to keep constituents informed by post may be cut. I do not possess an email facility and bearing in mind the vast sums of public money that are wasted this seems to be a miserly posture by the House of Commons."
	I received a raft of letters from satisfied constituents. For example, one wrote:
	"Such a comprehensive report is to be commended and is much appreciated."
	That was a report on transport and traffic that I compiled for my constituent. Another constituent from Colindale said that she
	"much appreciated being kept up to date"
	on matters of great interest. A constituent from Edgware said:
	"We appreciate all the communication we receive from you, and feel that you are the only MP that seems to genuinely care"
	about what is going on.

John Maples: Well, the hon. Gentleman worked out that people who were spending £25,000 a year on postage were sending out 600 letters a day. I cannot believe that all those letters were individually signed, and if they were not, they were circulars. It is expenses more than anything else that brings us into public disrepute, which is a reason why the communications allowance should be stopped quickly. The only comfort that I can take from the situation—I say this to the hon. Member for Hendon—is that there is considerable statistical evidence showing that such local efforts make absolutely no difference to the election result whatsoever because the seat experiences the national swing.
	I had planned to speak about the sub judice rule, but since I have had to sit through three and a half hours of a somewhat Alice in Wonderland debate about all sorts of introspective issues, I thought that I would chuck some of my prejudices in as well. There is an illusion, or perhaps a delusion, that what we do is hold the Government to account and that if we were here more often, we would do it better. If we were serious about holding the Government to account, we would do two things that are never on the agenda at all. First, there should be a rule in "Erskine May" that Ministers have to give proper answers to written questions, which they do not do at the moment. Secondly, Select Committees should have the power of their own volition to summon particular officials and ask to see particular documents. A Select Committee cannot do that at the moment because it has to go to the House for a resolution, which it never gets because the Government whip their troops against it.
	We do not have the power to hold the Government to account. We have the power to drag Ministers down here every so often and make them listen to the moans of Back Benchers, but that is not holding the Government to account. We had the opportunity to do that yesterday and we saw what happened. Holding Ministers to account is not to do with September sittings or how much of our allowances we spend on our staff, but proper answers to parliamentary questions and proper powers for Select Committees.

John Maples: The hon. Gentleman temps me again. He said earlier that he thought that the amount that people spent depended on their generation in Parliament and that those who were elected relatively recently, such as him, spent more than those who came in a long time ago, such as me. I suspect that the correlation is with the marginality of people's seats and that it has nothing to do with how long they have been here.
	I am all in favour of short speeches—I shall try to follow that today, as I always do—but any rule must also apply to Front Benchers if we are to be serious about short speeches. Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesmen are the worst abusers of the system. They always seem to feel that they must speak for as long as the Secretary of State did. We heard a rambling 25-minute speech from the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesman today, although he could have covered the territory in 10 minutes. We heard a 35-minute speech from the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesman yesterday, although he could have covered the territory in 20 minutes. The shadow Foreign Secretary spoke for 20 minutes yesterday, but the Liberal spokesman felt that he had to speak for 35 minutes. I suggest that Front-Bench spokesmen should be limited to 20 minutes, plus interventions.

John Maples: The case in which the hon. Lady was involved has been mentioned in the debate and she may wish to check what was said. I am grateful for her support.
	I am sorry my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has left. I have discovered that the sub judice rule does not apply to cases once they have been taken to the European Court of Human Rights or the European Court of Justice. I am sure he would be happy and relieved to know that.
	It is right that we should not seek to influence a court in its decision, but there is a distinction between civil and criminal proceedings. If a criminal case is brought against somebody, members of the public might end up being on the jury and might hear and be influenced by what had been said in debate in Parliament. Civil cases are heard by judges sitting alone, except in a few libel trials, and it is inconceivable that a High Court judge in a civil case would be influenced by what I said in a question to the former Foreign Secretary or what a Select Committee might have said in a report. The judge will come to his conclusions and his judgment on the basis of what he hears in that court and the representations made to him.
	It is wrong that the rule should apply in the same way to civil courts as it does to criminal courts. The rule should draw that distinction. Also, the rule should be restricted to the subject matter of the case, and should not apply to peripheral issues that people want to raise around it which are in some tangential way related to it.

John Maples: I thought that I had already said that I can see two reasons for the sub judice rule. First, it avoids us appearing to prejudice a court's decision, and, secondly, it prevents us from getting on to the courts' turf at all.
	The comity point—the obligation to not comment on things that are rightfully the business of a court while proceedings are under way—should be more narrowly defined, and it should centre on the substance of the case. To take the example of our Select Committee report, if the people who brought the case had given evidence to us, and then sued the Saudi Arabian Government, it would have been wrong of us to publish the evidence and to say, "What happened to you is absolutely outrageous." However, I do not see why we should be prevented from publishing evidence given to us by people other than those involved about another series of events. Equally, I do not see why I should not ask the Government how much it cost to brief the counsel who is looking after the interests of those involved in the case. All that I am saying is that the dividing line is drawn much too far away from the court's procedures, and much too far into our territory. When a case goes on for two years, as did the case to which I referred, it is very difficult for Members of Parliament to carry out their jobs.
	Two Procedure Committee reports have been produced on the subject. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield considered the matter when he was Chairman of the Committee a couple of years ago, and the Committee concluded that,
	"with appropriate use of the Speaker's discretion, it does not recommend changes to the sub judice rule".
	The latest Modernisation Committee implies the same thing. It says that the perceived imbalance between how the sub judice rule applies in Parliament and outside could be addressed
	"by the appropriate use of the Speaker's discretion."
	It goes on to say that the phrase "national importance", which is involved in the matter of the Speaker's discretion in the sub judice resolution, should be interpreted "reasonably", and not solely with reference to its 1970s origins.
	It will be interesting to learn whether the proposals work, but I suspect that they will not, and that the Speaker will find that his discretion does not go wide enough. It certainly will not go wide enough to enable the Clerks in the Table Office or on Select Committees to advise Members that they are entitled to make the inquiries that they want to make; they might err on the side of caution. That will result in Members having to take their cases directly to the Speaker, because it is the Speaker's discretion, and no one else's, that matters. The sub judice resolution of 15 November 2001 said, on the subject of discretion, that matters sub judice
	"shall not be referred to",
	but then it says—and this is the crucial point on discretion—that
	"where a ministerial decision is in question, or in the opinion of the Chair a case concerns issues of national importance such as the economy, public order or the essential services, reference to the issues of the case may be made in motions"
	and so on, with the Speaker's discretion. Any lawyer would agree that the phrase,
	"issues of national importance such as the economy, public order or the essential services",
	restricts the definition of "issues of national importance" to those categories. I hope that the Procedure Committee, the Leader of the House or perhaps the Speaker himself, will look into the matter again so that we can try to redefine the Speaker's discretion in the sub judice rule, or redefine the remit of that rule by allowing different standards for civil and criminal proceedings. We should restrict it to the crux of the case that is before the courts, and not bring in peripheral matters.
	We should reconsider the wording of the provision on the Speaker's discretion, because I think that we will find that it does not go wide enough. I am seriously worried because, in the past two years, I have found myself restricted once as a Select Committee member, and once as a private Member of Parliament, from pursuing matters that could not conceivably have affected the result of a case, or have been a breach of the comity between Parliament and the courts. I have been restricted from doing so by the very narrow wording of the sub judice rule. I am disappointed that, as I said in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), the Procedure Committee did not think it necessary to change the wording of the resolution. I think that we will have to return to the matter.

Martin Salter: I speak as an enthusiastic moderniser and a former long-standing member of the Modernisation Committee. The modernisation of our arcane and antiquated procedures was the subject of my maiden speech, which was described by "Dods" as "brilliant", but was ignored by everyone else.
	Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that I support motions 6 and 7 on the proposed communications allowance and the ending of September sittings. Like the majority of hon. Members, I supported the Cook reforms of 2002, which were a good thing. I thought that they would all work, and I was enthusiastic in organising support for them. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) will remember that we won the vote on sitting hours by seven votes, so it was a tense night in the House. Many of those reforms were successful, and we ended the absurd spectacle of our legislating in the early hours of the morning. I often wondered what would have happened if journalists interviewed hon. Members leaving the Smoking Room or the bars at 2 am. What if a microphone had been put before us and we were asked what we were voting on? I am not sure that I knew exactly what I was doing at that time of the morning—perhaps it was only the Whips Office that knew.
	I accept that one of the Cook reforms did not work. Politicians do not like to admit that they were wrong, but as an enthusiastic moderniser and as a friend and supporter of Robin Cook I have absolutely no hesitation in admitting that we got it wrong on September sittings. I bought the argument, voiced by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) earlier, that the long summer recess gave the media a stick with which to beat us. It was too long period for the Government to escape scrutiny. However if we compare Parliament with other legislatures, we can see how enthusiastic and conscientious we are. League tables are very much in vogue, and I have with me one showing that, in 2005, the US Senate sat for 159 days and the House of Representatives for 140 days; in 2004, the House of Representatives sat for 110 days, and the Senate for 133 days. In 2005, the House of Commons sat for 133 days in 2005 for 160 days in 2004—the highest number of sitting days for any legislature in the table and certainly in the western world.
	At the bottom of the league, it is worth noting the efforts, or the lack of them, expended by the German Bundesrat, which managed a princely 12 days in 2004 and 11 days in 2005. The Bundestag, which is the lower House, managed 67 and 64 days respectively. We are not top of the league, as the Leader of the House and I discussed earlier. Greek parliamentarians win the gold medal, because in 2005, they managed to sit for 248 days, and for 110 days the previous year. I do not know what happened in Greek politics between 2004 and 2005, but it took up an awful lot of parliamentary time. Without boring the House with endless figures, out of all the modern Parliaments, we not only sit for more days, but sit for longer hours, too.

Martin Salter: My hon. Friend makes a valid point, but unfortunately that option is not before us. As the Leader of the House knows, there is a case for a more radical look at the parliamentary year, and I hope that we will do that. The question before us today is whether we return to the September sittings envisaged in the Cook reforms, and I would say that there is a powerful case against that. I could quote similar figures for 2004, but I will not detain the House.
	Let me move on to what has occurred and has worked—that is, the ability to table parliamentary questions during what would have been this year's September sitting. I was shocked to discover that we did not have the ability to table questions for the whole two weeks; it was a restricted privilege, for some reason, and we were allowed to do it only for four or five days. Nevertheless, full credit to hon. Members who managed between them to table 733 questions relating to every Department apart from Scotland. That is a good start, and I hope that it will be replicated. In the soundings that I have taken among hon. Friends and other colleagues, there has been enthusiasm for the ability to continue to table questions, and I believe that that is the intention of the Leader of the House.
	Finally, there is the issue of what we actually get up to in September, or at any rate during the summer recess. People take their holidays at different times. Like most Members, I work through the summer recess. My surgeries continue, as do my school visits. I cannot visit schools in August, for obvious reasons, but I can visit local businesses. I also find that I can get my head around issues, as I cannot always do when rushing from one meeting or engagement to another, given the fairly frenetic calendar to which we must all adhere in this place.
	There is also the work of all-party parliamentary groups. I am not one for jetting around the world, but I experienced a very enjoyable day out with the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), a fellow member of the all-party angling group, when we visited Sparsholt fishery management college. It is not normally possible to find time for such activities.
	There are residents groups in my constituency. I commute back to Reading every night, and I can be back within an hour and five minutes. I can just about make an 8 pm meeting on a Thursday. But even given the luxury afforded to me—the ability to do that on a Thursday night, without having to cram everything into Friday—I cannot get around to visiting all the organisations that I want to visit by concentrating my activity on Fridays. I need that time. I think that many of us need that time, and many of our constituents expect to see us during that time.

Martin Salter: The schools in my part of the world were on holiday during one of those weeks, which answers my hon. Friend's question fairly definitively. Moreover, I am not sure whether we were given that extra week in the second year. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), I think that it was taken away from us then. And, of course, House business has a habit of crowding in. I am talking more about the principle of September sittings.
	The subject of Members' postage and communications has exercised the Modernisation Committee for some time. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South—he is not present now, but I said that I would mention this—made some rather acerbic comments. I am not surprised, because his views are known, and the figures show him to be one of the lower users of the Members' postage budget. He has been in this place for a long time and I have huge respect for him, but those who have been here for a long time should not so readily dismiss the enthusiastic and conscientious way in which many Members elected from 1992 onwards have chosen to go about their business. There is no rule book and no job description, and we must discover for ourselves how best to represent our constituents.
	My postage budget is quite low this year; it has been higher in previous years. I agree with much of what was said by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples). There is no direct correlation between the amount that a Member spends on postage and his or her eventual electoral result. The fact remains, however, that huge issues sometimes blow up in our constituencies. In an intervention earlier, I mentioned the closure of Ashford hospital, which affects the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire). He presented a petition with 25,000 signatures; the closure was a huge issue in his constituency. Because there was no postage cap, he could legitimately write to every one of the constituents who had presented him with the petition.
	I too have carried out mass mailings to petitioners on important subjects. It all depends what is blowing up on the patch at any one time, but the fact remains that if Mr. Speaker chooses—as he has the right to—to impose a cap on our postage and establish a finite budget, when problems explode in constituencies, Members on both sides of the House will not have the wherewithal to do the job that they want to do in the way they want to do it.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South said that he accepted the case for circulation of Members' surgery cards and contact details. Hardly anyone would argue with that, but how on earth would we fund the production of surgery cards and contact details if they were to be distributed to every elector within our present budgets? As I said earlier, many of us are topping up those budgets from our own pockets.
	In June 2004, the Modernisation Committee produced a unanimous report entitled "Connecting Parliament with the Public". It was informed by a questionnaire sent to all Members covering the rules relating to the use of prepaid envelopes and direct mail. As MPs cannot communicate with constituents on matters on which they themselves are statutory consultees—I have mentioned the closure of post offices—nor write to their constituents on matters before Parliament, nor consult them about the implementation of legislation and its effect on their lives and communities, it is important to reflect, and to argue the case for amending the current House rules.
	Members' responses to the questionnaire circulated by the Modernisation Committee were instructive. MPs wanted a revision of the rules on unsolicited mail, particularly to inform constituents in a given area about a local issue, such as a planning matter. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) referred to that topic, and I agree that the rules are confusing.
	Members were asked in what way MPs' ability to communicate with constituents could be improved. Some sought better facilities for e-consultations, and referred to the use of websites and further electronic media. Asked whether the incidental expenses provision—the IEP—was sufficient to meet the needs associated with dealing with casework, Members overwhelmingly said no.
	In response to the survey, the Modernisation Committee report stated:
	"Nearly half of Members thought that the rules on mailings were not sufficiently clear."
	It is important to remember that this was an all-party report. It continued:
	"Circulars include the annual and Parliamentary Reports which are now produced by many Members but they can also include 'standard letters' which are in routine use by many Members, cards listing dates and locations of surgeries and other non-partisan material. It may on occasion be appropriate to distribute these items more widely, rather than only sending them in response to constituents' letters."
	It is absurd that we, as elected Members of Parliament and full-time politicians—well, most of us are full-time politicians—are more disadvantaged than elected councillors. In Battle ward in my constituency, we have a huge new Tesco development. It will radically change the Oxford road in Reading. Many local shopkeepers are worried about whether they will be put out of business, and many local residents are worried about what it will mean for traffic flows, school places and goodness knows what else. My colleague, councillor Tony Jones, can quite legitimately mail out a questionnaire to constituents of the area through the members' services of Reading borough council. But I, as their Member of Parliament, cannot do so, because that would be unsolicited mailing. However, if, in response to a councillor—a part-time politician—my constituents raise a petition and write to me, I can then legitimately write back to them. We have an unclear situation, and this issue needs to be resolved.
	I believe that the rules on prohibiting campaigning, fundraising or business correspondence should be confirmed and clarified. The rules on unsolicited mail should be clarified and amended to ensure that non-partisan mailings can be undertaken by MPs, to report on their own activities and to consult with constituents on matters before the House and on the implementation of legislation passed or pertinent local issues.
	The Modernisation Committee conclusions were supported by the Hansard Society. It said:
	"Voters continue to respect their local MPs and much of the effective communication of what Parliament does, especially at the local level and in the local media...The level of informed, transparent and engaged democracy that any citizen of the 21st century has a right to expect is, of necessity, comparatively expensive. Cut-price democracy will never represent much of a bargain."
	I suggest that those Members opposing the MPs communication allowance, which will have the effect of limiting the activities of some of our high spenders, are supporting a cut-price democracy.
	Finally, I hope that Members will be consistent. I do not expect Members who vote against the MPs' communications allowance in the Lobbies tonight to claim it next year. It is right and proper that we are all under extensive parliamentary scrutiny: many of us will be watching.

Charles Walker: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter). Not only has he given a fabulous rendition of his views—some of which I agree with, and others I disagree with—but he has enabled me to catch my first 20 lb carp, so I have a lot of time for him.
	I am one of those dreadful Members of Parliament who communicate with their constituents via annual and bi-annual reports. I see nothing wrong with my constituents knowing what I am doing in their name. It is important for them to know that their MP is not only working in the House of Commons, but is around and about in the constituency meeting the people who matter to them—those who provide the many public and charitable services that go on in Broxbourne.
	I am also pleased to say that I have something in common with the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). I, too, am the hardest working Member of Parliament in my constituency. I am the only Member of Parliament for Broxbourne, but I am the hardest working one. Indeed, the same goes for all 645 of us: we are all the hardest working MPs in our constituencies.
	We cannot have a total free-for-all on allowances. In my view, our allowances are very generous. There is the office cost allowance and the staffing allowance, which together total some £108,000. Moreover, we are allowed to rob Peter to pay Paul—we can take money out of our staffing allowance and put it into the office cost allowance, for example, so there is some flexibility. I am very concerned at the idea of having limitless expenditure on postage, without any accountability.
	Perhaps one way round the problem is to take an average of all 645 MPs' postage. Such an average would include the highest and the lowest spenders, and might provide an average sum of perhaps £4,000 a year, on which most of us could operate, give or take a little less or a little more. But if we could not, we could always make up the difference from our office cost allowance—it is called managing a budget. We expect people in the public sector and in the NHS to manage a budget, so it is quite ridiculous that we MPs should not apply the same financial rigour to ourselves. I leave those thoughts on office expenditure with the House.
	I hate to mention the newspapers, because I share many of the views expressed by the hon. Member for Reading, West in that regard, but I should point out that some newspapers are referring to our getting £10,000 to £17,000 in additional money for postage. I am sure that that is wrong and I hope that it is, because if we are seen to be spending that kind of money, it will bring us into further disrepute with our constituents.
	On September sittings, I am broadly in favour of coming back earlier than we do, but I share the concerns expressed by many people. It is ridiculous to come back for two weeks in September, and then to disappear to the seaside for a week in order to attend our party conferences. If we are to come back earlier, let us do so toward the end of September, which is still two weeks earlier than coming back at the beginning of October. Of course, there is an argument—I am not sure that my view is shared by colleagues—for having fixed Parliaments. That way, we could follow the American example and have one conference every four or five years before a general election. However, this is neither the time nor place to discuss that.
	It is important that Parliament sit for a couple of weeks longer every year in September, but I do not want to see more legislation in this place because there is far too much legislation. We need to spend more time talking about the things that matter to the people of this country—housing, building on the green belt instead of on brownfield sites, immigration, pensions, the nuclear deterrent—so that our constituents can feed their thoughts to us and we can take a considered view. So please let us have less legislation in this place and a bit more considered discussion of the things that keep our constituents awake at night.
	Finally—gosh! I have taken four minutes—I turn to family friendly work practices, which I know many people like. We sit till 10 o'clock on Monday and Tuesday nights but rise at 7.30 on Wednesday, which means that I am at a loose end on Wednesday evenings. I normally end up in a curry house eating things that I should not eat. Could we not use the additional two and a half hours not for whipped business, but for one-line debates, during which we could hold Ministers to account. That might provide more time for Back Benchers to have Adjournment debates and talk—

Mark Lazarowicz: May I say from this corner, where the most junior Members of the Labour Benches sit, how much we agree with the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker)?
	There has been a lot of debate about a number of issues this afternoon. I want to say something about September sittings but first I want to draw attention to some of the other aspects of the report of the Modernisation Committee, on which I am privileged to serve. I want to highlight the fact that, if we seize opportunities offered in that report, there will be important consequences not just for the way in which we carry out business in the House but for the way we relate to the wider public, which is one of the themes that the Committee report addressed. I want specifically to refer to the proposal for Standing Committees in effect to be turned, in the normal course of matters, into evidence-taking Committees. If that is done properly—it has to be done properly— it could radically transform the way in which this place operates for the better.
	Because of the location of my constituency, obviously, I observe quite closely and read a lot in the media about the workings of the Scottish Parliament. Like all institutions, it has its good points and its bad points, but one of its good points—this is widely recognised—is the effective way in which its committees take evidence and have a direct impact on the legislation that comes out at the end of the consideration process. That results in better legislation. If we can get outside organisations regularly expressing their views to Members of Parliament, we will have a better chance of getting legislation changed before it becomes set in stone by the Government, or by the intricacies of the political process.
	In addition, the opportunity to have a dialogue with organisations, groups and society outside Parliament is an extremely important way of rebuilding trust between the political process and the wider community, which we all recognise that we have lost to a certain degree. Therefore, the importance of the proposals for Standing Committees should not be underestimated. However, it must be recognised that we have to adopt those enthusiastically as a Chamber if we are to make the most of them. As hon. Members have pointed out, the procedures to allow us to do that have been there for many years and they have not been taken up, so it is important that, as well as agreeing the proposals today, as it appears we are likely to do, given that no one has spoken against them, we put them enthusiastically into practice and do not allow them to fall by the wayside.
	In that connection I have some reservations about the consensus that appears to have developed that it will be a member of the Chairmen's Panel who will chair the new Special Standing Committees. I say that because there must be a danger that, in some cases, the member who will be chosen to serve as the Chair of a Special Standing Committee may not have any particular expertise or interest in the subject matter of that Committee. It may be that members will adopt that interest for that Committee, choose to become heavily involved in its work and act in a proactive way, as Select Committee Chairs often do. If not, in some cases, there would be a danger that the Special Standing Committee's evidence-taking session would become ritualised and almost like a court hearing rather than a more free-flowing exchange of views between Members and outside organisations.

Helen Goodman: As my hon. Friend says, Members across the House say that they want a more representative Parliament with more women in it. Inevitably, that means thinking about making the way that we operate more family-friendly. That would be beneficial not just to Scottish Members, but to English and Welsh Members. We are not talking about doing more work in total but about shuffling it around the year. If we have September sittings, we will be able to maintain recesses in the middle of February and at the end of May.

Andrew MacKinlay: Surely the example we must address is not the recall of Parliament because of an invasion of another country, but because of a transport tragedy, such as the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise or a major rail crash. If that happened today, we would have a statement and questions tomorrow. If it happens in September, there is no statement and no examination.

Nick Harvey: I agree entirely. The hon. Gentleman has correctly discerned the motivation of the Leader of the House in tabling the motion.
	The situation regarding envelopes and stationery is curious, as Members have already observed. The rules say, in principle, that Members are not supposed to use those facilities to send out unsolicited mailings. The Committee on Standards and Privileges, the Serjeant at Arms and the commissioner found some difficulty—I choose my words carefully—in picking their way through the regulation. It is absurd that if a post office was due to close in a village of 100 houses in a Member's constituency, he or she could not write about the closure to the 200 residents who live in those houses—yet if the Member received a petition on the future of the planet signed by 30,000 people, it would be perfectly in order to use the crested stationery and pre-paid envelopes to correspond with them. That is clearly nonsense. Whatever else happens, if we leave in place a system that allows unlimited use of post and stationery, we need far clearer and more definite rules than we have at present. If anything, the rules are rather over-prescriptive; I should prefer a more sensible regime, but with a clear cap on the expenditure. We cannot have our cake and eat it—it must be one way or the other.
	I come now to annual reports and similar communications sent out by Members that can be funded by the IEP, where there are also some strange rules. For example, the content of those reports is rightly supposed to be non-partisan, but if we include a direct quote of something said in Parliament, it becomes possible to refer to our own speeches in Westminster Hall, during which the most scandalously partisan points may have been raised. Such comments could be passported straight into the report with no infringement of the rules. That is clearly absolute nonsense, which makes a complete mockery of the system, and it needs to be tightened up.
	The motion before the House invites us to consider the communications allowance and the Members Estimate Committee is invited to bring forward regulations that would allow us to address all the anomalies to which I have referred. Some have asked why we need a communications allowance and why we are not simply allowed greater use of envelopes and stationery. For one thing, that is an incredibly expensive way for MPs to take proactive communication out to the constituency. Each item sent will incur the full postage rate whereas there are, as hon. Members will know, much more economically viable ways of communicating with large numbers of people. Rather than use ordinary postage of the Royal Mail, it is far better to have a communications allowance through which Members can use their own ingenuity and ability to manage a budget—to refer back to an earlier point—in order to get the best solution that best suits the communications that they want within the rules that are rightly understood as necessary to exclude party political purposes.

Nick Harvey: I certainly agree with the objective of trying to put Members on an equal footing. As I have said, it cannot be right that some are spending 15 times more public money than average on communications. We could go down the route of having a precisely equal format, but I do not welcome the hon. Gentleman's suggestion of trying to stamp out innovation. In the modern era, there are many different ways of communicating and there could be generation gaps between different Members in how they proceed. We need a certain amount of flexibility. The motion calls for the rules to be worked out, so it would be perfectly in order for the hon. Gentleman to make his recommendations to the Committee.
	I was dismayed to hear the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) imply that she intended to vote against the motion simply because she would prefer our usage of envelopes and crested stationery to be paid for out of the communications allowance. I agree with her—she is entirely right—about how it should operate, but it seems to me to be within the scope of the motion for that sort of detail to be dealt with by the Members Estimate Committee, as it draws up the detailed regulations to accompany the allowance. The right hon. Lady will have a further opportunity to make her point at that stage, and if it came back to the House later she could pick it up again. I honestly do not believe that her preference for operating the scheme, which I share, provides any reason at all to vote against the motion.
	I also listened carefully to the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, who accurately described some of the difficulties experienced in implementing the rules as they stand, and I rather shared his point of view that the new regime should not give rise to a big increase in the total spend. Again, that issue can be hammered out when the details are formulated, but the motion today establishes a principle. I believe that it is a good and right principle.
	Communicating with our electorate what Members and Parliament are doing is an entirely legitimate right. It happens in many other countries and it is important to undertake that work if we are to improve the House's reputation. However, everybody must be on an equal footing, and there must be cap and better and more logical rules. The communications allowance proposal represents the best opportunity to try to create such a regime that we have had for a long time. When I consider how long it has taken to get to that point, I shudder to think how long it will take to get back here if we blow the chance today and reject the proposals. I therefore urge hon. Members to support motion 6.

Peter Bone: I was trying to make the point that if those statements were made immediately before the recess, they could be challenged in the 11 weeks in which Parliament does not sit. If the House adopted my proposal of in-depth reviews of Parliament, the hypocrisy of those statements could be exposed.

Peter Bone: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the House sat in September, hon. Members would not have to worry about the pressure of voting. They would have more time for scrutiny, and we could correct inconsistent facts in statements. Ministers seem to be able to say certain things, but there is not enough time for Back-Bench Members to correct them. In conclusion, if we do not vote for the amendment, we will close off the opportunity for September sittings, whether or not we wish to reschedule the parliamentary year. In my opinion, it is quite wrong that for 11 weeks the Government, or any other Government, should not face parliamentary scrutiny.

Bob Spink: There are great benefits in being called early or late in a debate, as one can make a speech to many more excellent colleagues in the Chamber, although that may well give me more pleasure that it gives them.
	It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), who made an excellent speech that was only five minutes long. He made his points better for his brevity, and I believe that he shared my amusement and amazement that many right hon. and hon. Members spoke for 20 or 30 minutes in a debate partly dedicated to shorter speeches. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) said, it is desirable to restrict speeches, but three minutes is too extreme a limit and would frustrate good debate in the Chamber. I shall therefore vote against that measure.

Malcolm Bruce: I commend the Leader of the House for motion 4, on Standing Orders, which will take forward how we deal with legislation in the House.
	In an earlier intervention, I said that I had heard comments from public and private agencies in Scotland—British organisations that deal with both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster, and can make comparisons. They have concluded that the way in which legislation is handled in Scotland, whether or not it involves a partnership or shared responsibility between Westminster and the Scottish Parliament, is much more efficient and effective and that the quality of the legislation is much higher. That is not because the calibre of the political animal in Scotland is necessarily better, but because the process ensures that evidence is taken and that committees help to shape legislation through their deliberations. Problems of the kind that we have here, whereby legislation is ill prepared and there are lots of late Government amendments, do not happen to anything like the same extent. The Leader of the House's proposal seems to give us a much better chance of achieving that quality, which would benefit the House, outside agencies wishing to influence legislation, and, ultimately, the Government, who will end up with better laws.
	There is a demarcation dispute as to who should chair the evidence-taking element of the Committee. The hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), who is not in his place, declared his interest as a member of the Speaker's Panel. I am surprised that relatively few members of the Liaison Committee have taken part in the debate, because they said at a meeting last week that they were somewhat unhappy with some of the proposals, and I would have thought that some might come here to say so. The process of taking evidence is different from that of deliberating on a Bill. It is no disrespect to the excellent members of the Speaker's Panel to suggest that it is not necessarily where their experience lies, although of course if their job changes their competence will change.
	It is argued that members of Select Committees who specialise in a particular Department have particular expertise, so the quality and depth of their inquisition is therefore likely to be that much more effective. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) told me informally that when he sat on the "Puttnam Committee"—a Committee of both Houses that took evidence on the Ofcom legislation—his expertise hugely helped the process of the deliberations and improved the quality of the Bill.
	I hope that the House will consider and accept the recommendations made by the Modernisation Committee in this respect. I also hope that the Leader of the House, who implied in his response to the hon. Member for Buckingham that he was rather more in favour of the Speaker's Panel approach, will reflect on the matter, and that we may even have the opportunity to discuss it more fully.
	I want to speak against motion 7, on September sittings, and in favour of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). Indeed, an amendment of a somewhat similar character stands in my name. It is worth recalling that before the introduction of September sittings, the House was recalled during the summer recess in 1992, 1998, 2001 and 2002. In 2003, when the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) was Leader of the House, he said:
	"The hon. Gentleman should note that there was no demand for the House to be recalled over the summer recess. Why? Because everyone knew that we were coming back at the earliest opportunity in September. Year after year, however, there have been almost ritual demands for a recall...The public do not understand how we can be in recess for 13 weeks, as happened with the old model."—[ Official Report, 18 September 2003; Vol. 410, c. 1077.]
	The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) gave examples of years in which the recess lasted for 13 weeks.
	I am not interested in what the media think about what we are doing during those 13 weeks—I am interested in how we can possibly stand up in front of our constituents and say that the important business of questioning Ministers and calling Parliament to account goes on week in, week out, except for 13 weeks when it does not go on at all. I think that most people understand that there is a period in August when hardly any other Parliament in the world sits, other than in extremis. As the then Leader of the House said, Members can hold back for a few weeks if we know that the House is going to be sitting and that we can marshal our arguments before we make our case. It is not credible to suggest that we can do the job that we are elected to do effectively when the House does not sit for 13 weeks at a time. Frankly, I found some of the contrary arguments breathtakingly unbelievable.

Mark Pritchard: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is, by definition, likely that he would see less of his constituents as a result of sitting in this place in September, and that as a result, he would be less well advised about issues in his constituency?

Malcolm Bruce: The answer is simple. The House needs to sit regularly, with regular breaks. We should neither sit for too long nor be away for too long. That ensures that we get the balance right between time spent in the constituency and time spent dealing with matters in the House. It is the distribution of our workload that is inefficient and ineffective, in that the job we are supposed to do simply cannot proceed.
	The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) made some suggestions that I found interesting, although they were somewhat derided.

Malcolm Bruce: Not by the Leader of the House, but by some other Members. They were suggestions about how we might organise the time. The hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) is not present, and I am not being ironic when I refer to the proposition that we only turn up here when there is a Division and the Whips require us to do so. It is true that there may well be occasions when only 30 or 40 of the 645 Members feel the need to be here, but the fact is that every Member has the opportunity to be here. Ministers have to be here, the exchange of information is here, and the public can observe what is going on and what is being said. That is what matters. Each of us—all 645 Members—must account to our constituents for where we were and why we were there, and I think most of us are big enough and ugly enough to be able to handle that reasonably competently. I believe that we are in danger of making a complacent and serious error if we vote for the recommendation by the Leader of the House.
	The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) said that she used to be in favour of September sittings, but would vote against them tonight. She made some pertinent comments about the need to rebalance the whole year along the lines that I have suggested, and said that although she would vote for the motion, she hoped that we would revisit it. I heard what the Leader of the House had to say, but my honest view is that if the House votes for his motion, that is the last we shall hear of it until pressure and embarrassment build up again, and the House comes to its senses and concludes that not sitting for 12 or 13 weeks is an unacceptable way in which to conduct our business in modern times. I believe that the Leader of the House, who used to be in favour of September sittings, has made an error of judgment in this case.
	Some Members have expressed the view that our September sittings were not very effective. I agree. They were not very well organised. It was, I recall, well known that many Ministers did not really approve of them, feeling that they were a nuisance and a pain. The Government business managers, of course, control what goes into those two weeks. It is very easy to look back and say that it was not very much, but there were Second Reading debates and Report stages. There was legislative progress, which may have reduced the ping-pong pressure at the end of the parliamentary year.
	In an intervention, the hon. Member for Buckingham sensibly advanced the case for a business Committee. That would help to resolve the issues of the pattern of business, the pattern of sittings, and how business can be managed effectively. I think that those who say, "The September sittings did not work very well and we should revert to the status quo ante," should instead be asking how we can arrange September sittings in a better and more effective way.
	This is on the record, so no one should be surprised when I mention it now; nor is it the main part of my argument. But we have had debates, on which the whole modernisation process hinged, about making the House a family-friendly institution. That "family-friendly" institution was designed mostly for London Members. I am not saying that it is perfect for them, but if the House rises at about 7.30—as it will tonight—presumably they can be at home with their families by 8 pm, and even earlier on Thursdays. Indeed, they can nip home between votes on Mondays and Tuesdays, unless there is a running whip. This is not special pleading from a Scottish Member. Any Member whose constituency is significantly out of town will be either in London or in the constituency, not running between the two—with the possible exception of the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce).
	The serious issue is to do with the fact that most people come to Parliament for the three or four days in the week that the House is sitting to conduct their parliamentary business and they then leave, and squash in whatever they can in terms of consultations and visits in their constituencies, which they get back to on Thursday night if they are lucky, although in some cases not until Friday morning. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) again made some sensible suggestions on whether we could have shorter weeks, but more of them, to allow for a better balance; that might work. But the House needs to take on board the fact that we are in danger of completely ignoring the family considerations of out-of-town Members, in terms of considerations such as school holidays.
	On a personal basis, when I analysed the situation as of two years ago, I found that the only times when my children and I were off together were Christmas and the first two weeks of August; there was no other time when the children were off and the House was not sitting. I am not suggesting that we can accommodate all variations to do with school holidays, given that they are changing. But I got the impression that almost every Member liked the idea of rising earlier in July—that that suited most of us, throughout the United Kingdom. That is the case not least because in recent years we have found that the hottest and most uncomfortable weeks tend to be the last two weeks in July, and the Leader of the House will know that not only is the weather at that time uncomfortable, but it makes life worse for him, as hot and bad-tempered Members who wish they were with their families or abroad are not the most compliant and helpful of legislators.
	The original proposal was that we rise earlier in July and go back in September. I completely agree with those Members who have suggested that having a two-week sitting in September and then another break for several weeks does not work. That is why, although I am happy to support the amendment of the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), my amendment suggested that we required further consultation to try to work out a pattern and balance of sittings of the House that meets the various considerations. I wrote to the Leader of the House on this matter, and he courteously wrote back acknowledging the content of my letter, and I honestly thought that that was what he was engaged in—that he was involved in a discussion to see how we could review our sittings and come up with an alternative proposition that met the objectives originally set out. I certainly did not expect us to go back to having a long 12-week recess.
	I was as disappointed as other Members when I saw what the Leader of the House was proposing. I can only say to Members who do not feel satisfied with the length of the recess but are prepared to vote for the motion, that I am with the hon. Member for Walsall, North. I believe that the motion will leave us with long recesses for the foreseeable future, or until such time as a head of steam for change builds up again—and anybody who has been a Member of this House for quite some time, as I have, knows that it takes quite a long time for a head of steam for change to build up.
	Even at this late stage, I plead with the Leader of the House to go further than he has done in this debate. On the basis of the way that the vote is likely to go, he should say to the House that he takes on board the idea that we must think hard about how we manage the business process during the year, that he acknowledges that a 12-week recess without a break is not acceptable, and that he genuinely intends to consult more widely to see whether we can come up with a way of working that meets the needs of the House itself, our constituents, Members' families and the effective working of our democracy. If he does that, he will be welcomed as a Leader who is engaging the House in good faith. But my gut feeling is that the Government never liked the September sittings, and that they want to bury them once and for all. That would be an extremely regrettable development.
	Debates such as this are unusual, but we have had an interesting discussion and the balance of the argument has been much more even than the hon. Member for Walsall, North suggested in his initial speech. Most of the Members who vote will not have listened to the debate. But the Leader of the House has listened to the debate, and I give him credit for having been here for a very substantial part of it. I hope that he will take seriously the representations that have been made. If we simply abandon September sittings, or any reform of the pattern of sittings of the House, at this stage, we will be seriously out of touch with what our constituents expect.

Dawn Butler: As a member of the Modernisation Committee, I felt it important that I should contribute to the debate, if only briefly. At times it seemed as if some members of the Committee were there to ensure that we did not take modernisation too far.
	I want to discuss an issue that has not been dealt with so far—the section of the report dealing with information technology—but before doing so I want to stress the importance of evidence-based Committees and pre-legislative work. There has been a lot of talk today about engaging with the public. Such Committees and such work ensure that this House is effective, that we engage constructively with the public and that everybody—not just lobby groups—gets a say in how we produce legislation. A good example is the "Youth Matters" document. More than 20,000 people contributed to that debate—notably young people—and in the end we produced a very good document. Indeed, the youth opportunity fund and the youth capital fund are working very well in my constituency.
	Whether Members like it or not, IT will play an important role in engaging the public with Parliament. I am talking not about websites such as YouTube, but effective communication. MPs and the public should be able to follow legislative debates in Committee online—the report states clearly how this would work—and have hyperlinks to explanatory notes, and so on. People who watch our proceedings in Parliament and in Committee are amazed to discover that it is necessary to have three different sets of paperwork to try to follow the argument, which complicates matters and means that in fact, they lose the flow of the argument.
	I welcome the forthcoming pilot in Parliament. I should tell those who have doubts about technology that the Modernisation Committee took plenty of evidence on that issue. Although it was noted that Parliament's website has improved in terms of connecting with the community, we still have a long way to go. I welcome the move toward the integration of technology and the use of laptops and personal digital assistants in the House, and not only because it will increase efficiency. This House is renowned for using a lot of paper, and if we are serious about saving our planet, such a move will ensure that we use less.
	In line with the nature of this debate, I will keep my contribution very short. I hope that Members in all parts of the House will try to give the move towards the integration of technology a fair trial, because it is important that we modernise and use technology to its fullest capability. I thank the Leader of the House for helping to move forward the modernisation agenda, and I hope that it will be a success.

Jack Straw: This has been an excellent day's debate. It has covered the ground comprehensively, and it is striking that one of the consistent themes expressed on both sides of the House is that Members are anxious better to serve their constituents.
	I want to make two points, not least to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) and others. I do not think that he was in his place when I opened my remarks— [Interruption.] If he was, I apologise. In my opening remarks, I was spelling out factual evidence suggesting that the House has become more effective, not less, in scrutinising the work of Ministers. I do not dispute that we still have a long way to go. The 27 years that I have been in the House, however, have seen the crucial introduction of departmental Select Committees by the then Leader of the House, Norman St. John-Stevas, in the 1979-80 Session, and their considerable strengthening over the years. We have seen the introduction of Westminster Hall. In relation to the intelligence and security agencies, of which not only was no parliamentary scrutiny allowed but Governments' official position was not to aver their existence, we now have the Intelligence and Security Committee. Legislative changes that we have made, such as the Modernisation Committee agenda but also the Human Rights Act 1998 and Freedom of Information Act 2000, have opened up government to an extent undreamt of a generation or so ago.
	My second point is on the issue of trust and the media. If we go outside and ask people whom they most and least trust, the most trusted include ministers of religion, doctors, teachers and nurses. Competing at the bottom for the wooden spoon, depending on which day one asks such questions, are estate agents, journalists and politicians, with a special place reserved for those estate agents who are also journalists and politicians. Generally, we get low scores. But if we ask members of the public to say what they think about their own Member of Parliament, or a Member of Parliament they reckon they know, the scores rise rapidly. If they not only know their Member of Parliament but have respect for them, the scores are high and, these days, rising. I see part of my task as Leader of the House to increase those scores for everybody, in order better to facilitate the work of Members.
	Let me deal with the main issues in turn. I am grateful to the House, and I know that all members of the Modernisation Committee will be, for the overwhelming welcome for the changes proposed to the way in which Bills are scrutinised in Committee, and for the changes proposed for greater flexibility on Report. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has pointed out, Report has been up to now among the most important stages. We want Committee to be of equal importance. Additional scrutiny in Committee, provided that we introduce it carefully with improved resources available and commitments on all sides, should help to achieve that. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) who, in relation to the use of technology, has been committed to trying to bring the House into the 21st century at the beginning rather than the middle or end of the century. She has not only made important points but proposals that have fed their way into pages 32 and 33 of the report.
	On the communications allowance, it is fair to say that the principle of it has received general but certainly not universal support. I emphasise, however, that if colleagues read the motion, they will see that it asks them to welcome the principle of the proposal without committing themselves at this stage to its final introduction, which will have to await the recommendations of the Members Estimate Committee. The matter will then come back to the House. Of course, the Members Estimate Committee—the Commission under a different title—will take full account of the observations made. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) raised the issue of whether there should be one allowance or two, and it depends how we construct the rules.
	To pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling), the one thing that is certain is that once the allowance is introduced, there will be caps on spending on communication, both on stationery and envelopes and on wider communications. Whether we have one allowance or two, the aggregate amount will be less than the sums currently being spent by some hon. Members on both sides. This should not be seen as Members having the chance to spend even more money: it should be seen as a way of responding to the changing expectations and increasing demands of constituents. It is also a way to improve probity, rather than undermine it.
	The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) formerly opposed the proposal, but when he reads his speech in  Hansard tomorrow I hope that he will see that he made a very good case for change, and the introduction of a rules-based communications allowance. That was the gravamen of our report.

Jack Straw: Yes is my answer to that intervention. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) makes a point about the importance of interventions on Ministers. I spent many happy hours when in opposition, sitting on the Back Benches waiting to be called to speak in debates, and I always used to think that three minutes was better than no minutes. She may not agree and there may well have been people on the other side who thought that no minutes were, for me, better than three!
	I commend all the motions to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the First Report from the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons on the Legislative Process (HC 1097); approves in particular the proposals for the committal of bills to committees with powers to take evidence to become the normal practice for programmed government bills which start in this House; agrees that this be achieved by Standing Orders through the programming process, with such committees having freedom to decide how many evidence sessions should be held; agrees that the notice period for amendments to bills to be selected for debate in standing committee should, subject to the discretion of the Chair, be extended from two days to three days; supports the renaming of the various kinds of standing committee along the lines proposed by the Committee; and endorses the proposals for the gradual development of improved documentation and explanatory processes relating to bills.

Andrew Mitchell: As an Opposition Member, let me say that I not only agree with the hon. Lady's specific point but with the thrust of what she says, which will be widely welcomed in my constituency.

Tom Harris: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on securing this debate, and I welcome to it my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Mahmood), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) and for Birmingham, Hall Green (Steve McCabe). This is an important debate, which provides the House with the opportunity to consider the issues surrounding Birmingham New Street railway station and the action being taken by Government to address those matters. I hope that my hon. Friends will forgive me if I repeat some of the facts already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston.
	Birmingham New Street is one of the most significant stations on the rail network in Great Britain. It serves the prosperous business and residential centre of what some call the second city, although as I represent a Glasgow constituency, I would not necessarily use that phrase. New Street station is, however, an equally important location for passengers changing trains.
	The original station at Birmingham New Street was first established in the mid 19th century. The site was once occupied by two adjacent stations, built by rival companies. A major rebuilding scheme was undertaken in the 1960s. That produced the present station, which opened in 1967, complete with the Palisades shopping centre, built over much of the operational station. At the time of rebuilding, New Street station was handling some 640 trains a day, resulting in around 60,000 passengers a day passing through the station. It now caters for more than double that number—some 1,350 trains a day, passenger numbers also having doubled to 120,000 a day.
	Business continues to increase, as witnessed, for example, on the west coast main line, where the trains operated by Virgin are now carrying 30 per cent. more passengers than before the recent upgrade to the line was implemented in September 2004. Virgin currently operates a half-hourly service to and from London. That is planned to increase to one every 20 minutes from December 2008, such is the demand for rail travel.
	The station is also an important destination for other trains. It is the focal point for Virgin Cross Country's long distance services. It is also a hub for the local and regional services of Central Trains, which play a vital role in the life of the west midlands. Trains provided by Arriva Trains Wales also serve the station on routes to and from Chester, mid Wales and Aberystwyth.
	Rail plays an increasingly important role in the life of Birmingham and the west midlands. Some train services have increased business by more than 50 per cent. in the past five years alone. Indeed, rail's share of the travel market in the west midlands has risen from 12 per cent. some ten years ago, to nearly 20 per cent. today. There is every expectation that such rail business will increase, and we must plan accordingly. That is especially important as we consider how best to deal with the transport needs of the west midlands in the longer term.
	A recent study, led by Network Rail but involving all the relevant train operators and the Department for Transport, concluded that the present rail system around Birmingham New Street could absorb a substantial volume of additional passenger traffic, sufficient to meet all medium-term and most longer-term needs. It also said that a doubling of business could be accommodated by lengthening trains—adding carriages—rather than by increasing train frequencies. New Street station could certainly accommodate longer trains, but platforms would have to be lengthened at some other stations.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston said, the present station at New Street is 40 years old, and the need to improve its size and ambience so that it can better handle increased passenger flows is a subject that has exercised the Department, Network Rail and Birmingham city council for some time. My hon. Friend mentioned the proposal prepared by the city council and Network Rail for the Birmingham gateway scheme, which has received wide publicity.
	The gateway proposal involves the provision of enhanced passenger capacity to alleviate overcrowding and facilitate long-term growth in business. There would be a much larger circulation and concourse area, with enhanced access to platforms, improved lighting and passenger facilities in general, and better access to the city centre. An integrated shopping centre would be provided, along with the opportunity for commercial development to offset overall costs.
	However, all that comes at a high cost. The present figures show a need for £380 million of public funding. Of that amount, £280 million is requested from the Department for Transport, with the balance coming from the Department for Trade and Industry. An expected contribution of £140 million from the private sector would help towards the "all-up" cost of £520 million.
	Although I commend the promoters for the hard work that has enabled the scheme to be designed, it represents a substantial sum and I am sure that the House would agree that we must make certain that it is the best-value way forward. Departmental officials are working hard to examine the business case presented by the city council and Network Rail that is designed to support the requirement for public funding. For example, the Department is in dialogue with the city council about the commercial risk associated with the project. The Government are not, and certainly do not want to become, the last resort for any cost overrun, nor do they want to pick up the pieces over any failed deal with the private sector.
	The gateway proposals are also being considered alongside the Department's current work on what is called the high-level output specification for rail, which will confirm what the Government want railways to deliver in the period from April 2009 to March 2014. An announcement, in the form of a White Paper, is likely to be made next summer.
	Simply put, any scheme for New Street must be affordable. Given the significance of the gateway scheme, and its impact on the railway and on available resources, it is likely that a way forward on options for the project will be included in the statement on the high-level output specification. I hope that that answers the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston asked about the timetable for an announcement.